Storage cabinets have long been known. Generally, such cabinets have a number of horizontal shelves supported at various heights within a housing. The overall size of the cabinet, the width and depth of its shelves, the number of shelves, and the various heights at which the shelves are mounted, are all selected with a view toward the intended use of the cabinet and the maximum use of available space. Thus, medicine cabinets generally have a small overall size, and the shelf width and depth, and vertical distances between shelves, tend to be small because the items stored in medicine cabinets, such as pill bottles, tubes of medicine, toiletries, and the like, tend to be small. On the other hand, the various dimensions of a cabinet intended to be used as a kitchen pantry tend to be larger to accommodate larger items such as food cans, bottles, boxes, and the like.
Regardless of size, however, all such storage cabinets suffer from a similar disadvantage, arising from the fact that the items stored therein are typically of various sizes, and particularly of various heights. As a result, if the vertical distance between two adjacent shelves is selected to accommodate the tallest items on the lower of the two shelves, the space above shorter items on the shelf is wasted. Although shorter items may be stacked one upon another to use some of that wasted space, unless those items are specially made to be stackable, such stacking is often precarious and potentially dangerous, leading to easily knocked-over columns of items. Furthermore, some of the shorter items may be taller than half of the vertical space available, making stacking impossible. In addition, some items may be unstackable because of their shape, such as tubes of medicine, toothpaste tubes, and the like.
A further disadvantage shared by many existing types of cabinets is that the smallest items stored therein tend to get lost among the larger items, making it more difficult to locate them when they are needed. Small, lightweight items also are easily knocked over or inadvertently moved around even if they are not stacked one upon another, which leads to cluttered shelves.
Prior solutions to the problem of cluttered shelves and easily displaced items on a shelf are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,016,097 and 3,731,819. Each of these patents disclose a rack or shelf which has a plurality of circular sleeves affixed to an upper surface thereof with the major axis of each sleeve being generally vertical. Bottles, cups or other items are placed in the sleeves and supported on the shelf to inhibit the item from being displaced or knocked off the shelf. While the devices disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,016,097 and 3,731,819 provide for an organized shelf, the storage space on the shelf is inefficiently utilized and only items which are configured to fit within the sleeves can be stored on the shelf.
It has therefore been an object of this invention to provide an improved shelf and/or cabinet design which reduces wasted space and thereby increases the potential capacity of the cabinet and/or shelf.
Another object of the invention has been to provide a device for storing items in a cabinet so that they may readily be found when needed.
A further object of the invention has been to provide such a device which prevents items in a cabinet from being knocked over or inadvertently moved around and thereby reduces clutter in the cabinet and/or on the shelf.